


Digitizing

by oneblueshoe



Category: Disney - All Media Types, Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VIII, Final Fantasy X, Kingdom Hearts, Tron (1982), Tron: Legacy (2010)
Genre: Angst, Crossover, Fluff, Gen, Humor, Magic, Technobabble, magic is science, science is magic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-30
Updated: 2012-12-30
Packaged: 2017-11-22 22:22:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/615001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oneblueshoe/pseuds/oneblueshoe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Quorra can travel between the stars..."</p>
<p>In which Quorra made a promie to Kevin Flynn and she intends to keep it. If she has to journey all across the universe and all across diffrent worlds to find Tron, she will do just that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Digitizing

**Author's Note:**

> Un-betaed so I apologize for any mistakes. This story does have a lot of details from Kingdom Hearts 2, although if you've played the game it shouldn't be at all difficult to follow. (And if you haven't, I hope this encourages you to do so! ;D)
> 
> Quorra's story takes place after Kingdom Hearts 2. Tron's takes place after Chain of Memories and before Kingdom Hearts 2.

Quorra’s journey begins on the remnants of The Grid.

She and Sam stand side by side on the shore of the Sea of Simulations. A phosphorous white light lingers in the air from the reintegration, like moonlight from the real world and they watch the black churning wave’s crash over one another.

Sam looks so sad and Quorra reaches out and claps his hand in hers. Her fingers are cold, his are warm. He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath and when he opens them again she smiles at him. Hand in hand they cross the sea, Sam carefully constructing a path octagon by octagon until it’s an intricately interlocked bridge.

Together they search the unstructured data, looking any remnants of the Rinzler program.

No, Quorra thinks, Flynn did not care for Rinzler.

They search for Tron.

But what they find instead is a gaping hole torn into the delicate infrastructure in the shape of a keyhole. Beyond it lays a realm that has no code and thrums with an energy that is unknown but vibrant and it makes Quorra’s skin tingle.

“This shouldn’t be here.” Sam says.

 

*.*.*.*

 

_“Hey Tron...do you ever want to leave this place?” Flynn asks._

_They are sitting on a tower that they had constructed together in the shape of a nine sided star polygon. Its walls are smooth silver mirrors and at each intersecting steam there is light that streaks down and it’s spinning in a slow lazy circle. Flynn is lying on his back looking up at the grid lines in the sky while Tron sits cross-legged on the edge of the tower, looking outward toward the craggy undeveloped parts of the Grid that boarder Tron city. Flynn’s inquiry draws his attention and with a frown furrowing his eyebrows he calculates the various responses but each one seems inadequate since he lacks sufficient clarification._

_“Are you talking about porting me to another system again?” Tron asks._

_Flynn sits up on his elbows and grins. “No man. I mean, this place. The digital world. Don’t get me wrong I love it here but if you could, wouldn’t you like to go out and explore something unknown? The ISO’s are proof there’s more beyond the organic and the digital, something never before seen by anyone.”_

_Tron is silent._

_Although he tries he finds that he genuinely cannot process what Flynn is proposing because the concept is not applicable to his programing. He exists to serve the Users and that means his presence is required in the Grid._

_“No.”_

_Kevin sighs._

 

*.*.*.*

 

The first thing that she does upon meeting Alan Bradley is hug him.

Kevin Flynn had told her so much about him that she feels as if she knows him. He is important because Tron was his program and because he was Kevin’s friend.

And to her absolute delight he looks exactly as she had pictured (with the exception that he’s wearing an apparatus on his face that Sam later informs her are “glasses”). Alan nearly falls over then awkwardly hugs her back to keep his balance while Sam just watches with amusement.

“Uh...yeah. Okay. Hi.” Alan says.

And Quorra laughs.

 

*.*.*.*

 

_Sometimes Tron thinks about his old system._

_It’s difficult because new objectives and parameters had been reprogramed into him, but faint traces of the memory of Space Paranoids lingers underneath it all, like a whisper._

_He misses his old system._

_He misses Yori._

_He misses_ his _User, Alan-1._

_But Tron can’t ever go back. He’d left it behind when he had agreed to go with Flynn._

_So he only thinks about it sometimes._

 

*.*.*.*

 

The last thing she does upon meeting Alan Bradley the night before going to the arcade for the final time is hug him, while Sam looks on with a serious expression.

This time it’s a promise.

It seemed important that she make it Alan in person, even if she did not tell it to him out loud.

 

*.*.*.*

 

_What makes Tron unique amongst the three of them is that he is not actually a program created by Kevin Flynn. He is an older program imported from another system and Flynn spends a great deal of time updating him and those improvements leave him with nearly as much authority over The Grid as a Flynn._

_CLU appreciates this even if Tron is uncomfortable with it._

_“He can’t be here all the time.” CLU says.  He picks up a rock and weighs it carefully, calculating how effectivly he could make it skip across the gently lapping waves of the simulated sea that roils before them. “By giving us equal authority it ensures that the system can evolve even when he’s not here.”_

_“I don’t think that programs should have as much power as the Users.” Tron says._

_“Why not?”_

_“Because we exist to serve the Users, not act as them.”_

_CLU turns his head to look at Tron, but the other program is looking at the portal thoughtfully._

_The stone in CLU’s hand suddenly feels very heavy and he thinks that if he had a heart it probably would have broken._

_Because he realizes at that moment that no matter how many improvements Kevin makes to Tron, he is ultimately bound by his programing, fundamentally incapable of evolving past the parameters written into his code._

_Tron fought for the Users. It’s why he existed and why he could never be equal to them._

_CLU sometimes thinks that they can never be equal to Users as well..._

_(because sometimes he secretly thinks that they’re already better than them)_

 

*.*.*.*

 

Inside the Grid for the last time Sam awkwardly shuffles his feet.

“Goodbye.” He says quietly.

“This isn’t goodbye.” Quorra says. “I’ll be back.”

Sam huffs in a poor mimic of a laugh, and there’s a lot of things unsaid in that breath. There’s sadness, bitterness, and hope all rolled into one. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”

Quorra knows he’s thinking about Flynn, and a quarter for a game that was never played.

She stands up on her toes and kisses him on the check and Sam sucks in a sharp breath in surprise.

“You’re here Sam.” She says. “I’ll always come back for you. That’s not a promise. It’s a fact.”

 

*.*.*.*

 

_There is a large blot of darkness on The Grid._

_It’s a large stain on the infrastructure and any light near it gets drained away.  Tron can’t get close enough to repair the surrounding coding without causing serious damage to his programing and Clu, for all his knowledge and talents, cannot decipher the anomaly’s codding (for there is none) to  diagnose what it is._

_Zuse informs them that the blemish is a Corridor of Darkness. A multidimensional pathway used to cross between worlds._

_“Only those deeply entrenched in darkness use them and that those who are not but use them anyway tend to get polluted with it.” Zuse says, spinning his cane lazily between his fingers._

_“What other worlds?” Tron is curious but the other program just laughs at him and lightly brushes an imaginary speck of dust off of his shoulder._

_“Just...other worlds. Places outside the Grid and the User realm.”_

_Tron considers that. He supposes that is only logical, given that the ISO’s had to have come from somewhere. He wonders what Flynn’s opinion would be but is fairly certain what CLU will say..._

_“Can you close it?” CLU asks, to Tron’s total non-surprise._

_“No. ISO’s don’t use_ darkness _to travel.” Zuse scoffs. He waves dismissively toward the void. “Ignore it.”_

_“Excuse me?” CLU is outraged. There is a...a_ blot _...on his system and this program actually has the audacity to tell him to just_ ignore _this imperfection?_

_“It’ll dissipate on it’s own given enough cycles.” He says. “Besides, you should be concerning yourself less with_ what _it is and more with_ who _created it.”_

_CLU and Tron exchange alarmed glances._

_“It’s only logical isn’t it?” Zuse smiles and his eyes practically sparkling. “Someone either created the corridor to get out or to come in.” He makes a show of thinking about it, tapping his finger on his chin. “Hmm... I wonder which it is.”_

_Zuse saunters off in the direction of the Recognizer with a laugh, leaving the two programs to stare at the corridor._

_Tron’s expression is thoughtful, while CLU’s is cold._

 

*.*.*.*

 

Quorra can travel between the stars.

She can render her essence into perfectly formed particles of dust that glitter across the cosmos and this infinitesimal form can tap into every binary sequence encoded into the cells of its landscape.

She does this because as an ISO she is not bound to the rules that dictate reality or the confines of the digital world. She does this because her best friend Sam Flynn says that she can do anything.

But she does this mostly because Kevin Flynn had _asked_ her too.

As she travels Quorra sees familiar key shaped holes pocketed into the cosmos. When she moves close she realizes that they lead into whole new worlds and can only stare in wonderment at it all.

 

*.*.*.*

 

_CLU’s idea is to scan the Grid, trying to locate any anomalies or unauthorized activity and focuses all of his attention on this task._

_Tron should be the one carrying out the search._

_He is a security program, who protects and secures the Grid._

_But instead some undefinable impulse brings him back to the mysterious anomaly. He sits cross-legged on the rocky ground to stare at the Corridor of Darkness. The now concrete idea that there are worlds beyond the Grid, beyond the_ User _world, is so...incomprehensible...yet there is something strangely intriguing about the possibilities and he is not sure why._

_Tron doesn’t think about going to see these worlds himself or “exploring” (as Flynn puts it) for that is beyond his programing. His world is the Grid, his purpose the Users. But it’s...distracting...to think that there is something beyond the parameters of everything he knows and is._

_So Tron sits, and watches at the corridor for a long time.  He tries to see if he can possibly catch a glimpse of anything inside of it, perhaps just a hint of these fabled worlds that Zuse talked about so dismissively._

_But all he can see, to his disappointment, is pitch black darkness._

 

*.*.*.*

 

Quorra first visits an exotic world called Agrabag.

It’s _amazing._ The heat is oppressive and she holds hot handfuls of sand just to feel the sensation of each granule fall from between her fingers. She probably spends far longer there then is strictly necessary but it’s so much _fun_ and she feels like she just walked into a scene from _Around the World in 80 Days_. The city is an elaborate maze that might feel intimidating if it all wasn’t so beautiful. She heads down Main Street and finds her way to the Bazar. There it’s an explosion of sound, color, food, clothes, wears, carpets, baskets, treasures and vendors peddle their goods to the people. Animals wander through the thoroughfare, camels and elephants, horses and snakes. Quorra goes from stall to stall, examining everything that everyone has to offer, from magic carpets to pottery with centipedes in it, from baskets to fine clothing.

She can’t _wait_ to tell Sam all about this.

After a while, when the sun is setting, the sky a purplish color with stars beginning to twinkle, she decides that it’s time to focus and so she begins to ask about Tron.

It seems that, most of the people here are not even very familiar with computerized technology nor have ever heard of anyone by that name or description. The closest she gets is when she speaks with a man near the entrance of the sultan’s home, a grand wooden gate that leads to a beautiful domed palace. His name is Aladin, the monkey his pet and friend called Abu. He seems to know that she’s not “from” Agrabah and is familiar with other worldly travelers (although it’s not particularly common) but has not heard of one named Tron.

“I’ll keep an ear out and let you know if I learn anything.” Aladin assures her.  Quorra is so happy that she shakes his hand a bit too vigorously, jostling Abu.

“Thank you! Thank you so much!”

“No problem.” Aladin manages to extract his hand from Quorra’s tight clutch but his smile is genuine.

Quorra leaves Agrabah that night and, despite not having much luck, she feels more excited and assured than ever. Because now, even if Aladin only keeps a look out, someone else is looking for the same thing she is.

 

*.*.*.*

 

_System corruption begins with a small incident downtown when an unauthorized program appears in a back alley._

_CLU names it a Magnum Loader._

_It is purple and resembles a small single-wheel light cycle with two arm-like apparatuses.  Tron opts to deal with it himself._

_The Loader is a capable opponent, not that it matters. Despite the fact that it fires off projectiles at him and drives up the side of one of the buildings, he quickly makes short work of it, his light disc arching through the air and cutting the Loader in half and it falls, drezzing into a thousand tiny pieces of data and scattering across the street._

_In the aftermath CLU’s voice calls out over the wireless in his helmet, demanding an update, worry etched into his words. Tron ignores it. Instead he walks over bends down to picks up a piece of the Magnum Loader. The edges are sharp; its side flashing like sparks in the streetlight._

_It possesses faint traces of the strange dark energy of the Corridor of Darkness but it’s not as strong, and Tron can get close with no program corruption._

_“Where did you come from?” He wonders._

 

*.*.*.*

 

Quorra’s next stop is Port Royale.

The smell of the ocean and the sound of the waves call to her. She had not gotten the chance to go to the beach and she’d always wanted to. To feel real water, taste the salt in the air, watch the sun set into the horizon.

Port Royale is like stepping back in time. She smiles brightly while seamen clomp down the docks, ships are secured or unloaded, people go from shop to shop, and navy men, peppered about, stand guard.  There’s huge old-fashioned iron cannons lining the rampart’s stonewall so that they faced toward the ocean. When she examines them she finds a note that says _“For the Pirates! – Commodore Norrington”_ attached to one.

“There are pirates!?” She asks one of the guard’s with delight.

“Err...” The guard says.

“Many.” A voice says from behind and she turns to see a tall navy man in a blue coat and an outrageous hat and white wig standing ramrod straight, his hands clasped behind his back.

“I hope I get to see some!” She says.

“I certainly hope you don’t.” The man says then regards her thoughtfully. Quorra looks down at herself and supposes she stands out quite a bit here. All the women she’d seen had worn corsets and big bustling dresses. Quorra is wearing boots, jeans and one of Sam’s black hoodies.

“Can I help you miss...?” He asks.

“Quorra!” She holds out her hand.

“I am Commodore Norrington.” Despite hesitating for a moment Norrington claps her hand in his and shakes.

“Thank you for offering to help me. I’m looking for someone.” She says. “But...I don’t think he’s here.”

It’s clear to her that Tron would not have drifted here. Tron is a program and this ocean is a not like the Sea of Simulations. In Port Royale its physical thing, smooth and cool and blue with no codding and the fizzling comes from sea foam and salt, not energy.

“Hmm. Well, I wish you the best of luck in locating this person.”

Quorra thanks him and departs.

She doesn’t stay as long as she did in Agrabah but does intend to do what she came here for and heads down to the docks. She sits on a wooden barrel to watch the world pass her by. The ships come and go in the meantime, and one in particular catches her eye because it’s a sinking raft with a makeshift sail that floats up to the dock rather than being steered. Someone is clinging to the sail and he gingerly steps onto the dock just before it capsizes completely.

He truly is the most unique looking person Quorra has ever seen. He is wearing a weather beaten brown coat and a tri-cone hat that covered dreadlocks with...bits and bobs and treasures...sewn into each lock.  He wobbles when he walks, as if the ground were the roiling waves rather than the ocean, his arms flailing about to keep himself steady. There are peaks of tattoos on his dark skin but nothing she can make out and when he notices her staring he smiles slyly, his teeth capped in gold.

The man tips his hat in a grand flourish at her then continues on her way and Quorra can feel a giddy kind of excitement bubbling up in her chest.

She thinks she just saw a pirate!

She can’t stop smiling and sits back to watch the sun set on the ocean.

 

*.*.*.*

 

_“What does it matter where it came from?” CLU demands. “Let’s get rid of it.”_

_Tron frowns, unconsciously curling his fingers around the Magnum Loader piece protectively. “Why?”_

_CLU looks at Tron aghast. “Why!? It’s an unauthorized and unwanted intrusion on the system. Is the_ security program _suggesting that this is a_ good _thing?”_

_Sometimes CLU sounded so much like Flynn that it was rather irritating._

_“We need to wait.” Tron says._

_“Why?” CLU says. “It doesn’t belong here. This is a closed system.”_

_“Not anymore.”_

_That comes out of Tron’s mouth without him even thinking about it. But once it’s said the words hang in the air heavily, their implications daunting._

_CLU narrows his eyes._

_“The ISO’s...the corridor of darkness...the magnum loader...” Tron says slowly, and each word makes CLU’s expression get darker, his circuitry casting and eerie glow on his features. “They came from somewhere. If you believe Zuse then they came from other_ worlds. _”_

_“Stop saying that like that’s something good!” CLU says, and Tron blinks._

_He hadn’t._

_(Had he?)_

 

*.*.*.*

 

Quorra finds herself at a horribly mad and exhausting tea-party in Wonderland.

Here, it is always six o’clock and they switch seats on whatever random whim strikes the guests. The dormouse can’t seem to stay awake while the March Hare and Mad Hatter cheer and toast, tea sloshing everywhere.

“Have we seen Tron?” The March Hare repeats.

“Perhaps we have!” The Mad Hatter declares.

Quorra is so startled that she gasps but before she can ask the Hatter cackles and slams his teacup it the saucer. “If we did, surely he went that way!” He points to the path on his right that winds into the forest and disappears.

“If we didn’t then he went that way!” The March Hare pointed down the left path and the pair clapped then it was time to change seats again. Quorra sits at the head of the table and wearily takes a drink of Chai-tea.

“Why do you want to know?” The Hare asks.

“I’m trying to find him.” She answers honestly.

But they had no time, patience, or need for honesty at the table.

“Tea time!” The Hatter bellowed, startling the Dormouse awake for just a moment before his eyelids droop again and soon he is snoring while the Hatter and the Hare guzzle green tea.

“Perhaps we saw someone else!” The Hatter says and it takes her a moment to realize he’s still talking about her question. “But maybe the man wasn’t in blue! Why yes, I think so.”

“Oh. Then it probably wasn’t Tron.” Quorra says with a sigh.

“Maybe he was yellow.” The Hatter’s grin is decisively unpleasant this time and his words make Quorra still.

“Excuse me?” She asks quietly.

“Or maybe not.” The March Hare laughs. “Let’s say he was purple!”

 “Purple it is! He went that way!” This time the Hatter points to the sky, and the Hare points to the ground.

Quorra groans and slumps down in her chair.

The Hatter climbs up onto the table and throws out his arms and begins to recite.

“From the beginning of eternity  
To the end of time and space  
To the beginning of every end  
And the end of every place.  
What am I?”

He points to Quorra and laughs and laughs.

“Perhaps I’m Tron!”

 

*.*.*.*

 

_“This is ridiculous!” CLU says. He stares at the piece of the Mangum Loader disdainfully._

_Tron doesn’t understand his own reasoning and takes a moment to consider._

_He knows that this is dangerous. That, by the very definition of his programing, he should agree with CLU._

_But this isn’t the MCP, Grid Bugs, a virus, or rouge programs.  Destroying it, trying to stop this...intrusion...feels like their trying to erase something vitally important, although he cannot yet define it._

_“My point,” Tron says. “Is that Flynn welcomed the ISO’s, an unknown and unintended development, into the Grid and is excited about the possibilities. And you_ know _that the idea of places beyond the Grid and beyond the User realm will interest him and that this...” Tron begins to hold up the piece of the Magnum Loader but CLU slaps it out of his hand. The piece goes flying and shatters against the wall, dissolving into useless pixels._

_It’s disheartening but no more so then CLU’s next reaction._

_“_ They don’t belong here! _” CLU towers over the other program but Tron is unmovable. “This is_ my _system and I won’t let these imperfections mare its design!”_

_“It’s not your system.”_

_CLU leans back as if he’d been slapped._

_“What?”_

_“This system belongs to a User.” Tron’s voice has become hardened and this time it is he who looks at CLU with narrowed eyes. “It belongs to Kevin Flynn.”_

_Tron doesn’t bother waiting for a response, turning and walking away, his boots crunching on the pixels of ruined data, leaving CLU to watch him depart solemnly._

 

*.*.*.*

 

Quorra’s first encounter with Heartless is at Beast’s Castle. A beautiful, pink, incandescent energy brings her here and it turns out to be a single rose, suspended in a glass jar, glowing brightly like a star.

But she leaves it alone because it is not hers, nor what she was looking for.

This world is fragmented, with only the castle and grounds seemingly intact and the rest of the universe just beyond the courtyard and above in the night sky. She can tell that it’s healing, see through the cracks in the stone to the core where it’s knitting itself back together like scar tissue, but it’s a slow process.

So she explores the foyer of the castle (it’s empty as far as she can tell) when a pack of them appear. Black pools into the air and feels like pollution and suddenly the creatures form out of the darkness, drop to the ground and attack.

Her light disc is pulled out from underneath her hoodie and light streaks through the air, slicing into a few of them with a bright glow that sends the Heartless scattering with shrieks. She spins and spins, ducking and dodging, striking and deflecting. Individually they are weak and can do nothing more than slash at her but their strength is in their numbers and soon she is nearly overwhelmed.

But Quorra is use to battle and well suited for it. She doesn’t stay to gloat or revel in it. Instead she pushes them back enough to make it back to the courtyard. From there she leaves, the Heartless nipping at her heals with shrieks and wails.

The feeling of the Heartless makes her skin crawl and for the first time she wants to go home.

Instead Quorra quietly continues on her way.

 

*.*.*.*

 

_CLU finds that he is confused and becoming angrier for it._

_He doesn’t understand why Tron insists that this...this..._ intrusion _upon the system is something to be tolerated. Perhaps even suggests that this is a_ good _thing._

_In every way Tron is everything CLU thinks that a program should be. He is strong and efficient and works to better the system. He is perfect, except for one vital component in that he does not share CLU’s vision of what the system should be._

_CLU ideally wonders if it would be possible to modify some of Tron’s programing. Some minor modifications, just so that they could understand each other._

_Flynn had done it, why couldn’t he?_

 

*.*.*.*

 

Quorra finds that exposure to the Heartless has warped her curiosity a bit, so it’s with this in mind, she detours into the Underworld of Mt. Olympus.

She knows a little bit about the various beliefs about the afterlife, including the Greek interpretation of the underworld, as reined over by Hades. And she thinks...just for one brief horrible moment...that maybe this is where she’ll find Tron. That maybe he did die and instead of derezzing he fell into this place, confined for all eternity. Maybe that’s why they could not find any traces of remaining data on the Grid.

Logically she knows this is wrong. But now she finds that she _needs_ to see for herself, to exercise the terrible thought out of her mind.

The Underworld lives up to its name. The rocky cavernous walls are visible through blue phosphorous and toward the ceiling there’s a greenish hue. It’s cold down here, with a sulfur smell that emanates from icy blue flames. She can see the shadows left behind by the Heartless but in the confines of the Underworld’s dark and dreary underground it doesn’t seem out of place. Quorra wanders for a bit, feeling uneasy and nervous. It feels like she walks for hours and in all that time there is no one.

Eventually she comes across a man dressed in a long red coat and wearing dark glasses. His name is Auron and Quorra is just so happy to see another human being that she rushes over to him.

He’s a...soul. (Quorra isn’t quite sure what to make of that.) He’s also someone that Hades doesn’t harass, so he has a fair amount of free reign over wandering in the Underworld unsupervised.

Although he is aloof, Auron doesn’t seem averse to answering her questions and even gives her some hope. He tells her that Hades makes it a point to keep an eye out for souls from other worlds. The lord of the Underworld even has a special repository for them. But Auron makes it his business to know what Hades does, and as far as he can tell nobody named Tron had passed through.

“If this...being...is a creation of machina then would it even be possible for him to come here?” Auron asks with a raised eyebrow.

Quorra looks around at the craggy, rocky Underworld, perpetually glowing a dim pastel blue, and shutters.

She certainly hopes not.

 

*.*.*.*

 

_The memory core experiences a breach._

_Although nothing is damaged there is a significant amount of data that is copied although onto what and for whom they are unable to determine._

_“This is all your fault!” CLU accuses and Tron is aware that everyone in the tower is looking at them both._

_But he finds that he cannot argue with that. The sense of failure is profound and so he remains silent and endures every verbal attack that CLU launches at him._

 

*.*.*.*

 

Quorra finds that once she has encountered them, she cannot unseen it.

What she once presumed to be shadows, she realizes, are Heartless. There are pockmarks in the fabric of every world’s reality where they ooze into existence and stain everything they encounter. There is residue from these creatures all over the worlds and stars, dark spots that cannot be remove, only built over or ignored.

She swallows her fear and forces herself to go on.

 

*.*.*.*

 

_This time there is another hostile interruption that occurs in the arena._

_A Devastator and a pack of Strafer’s appear and begin a level of data corruption that was unheard of. Tron, Equinox, GIG, Enzo, and an ISO named Streya do the best that they can to maintain the structure of the arena program and salvage what data they can._

_It’s a difficult battle but after a long struggle, they win. The Strafer’s are destroyed, their codding remnants scattered across the arena, and the Devastator (who was conjuring them up) lay in pieces and this time CLU doesn’t call him to see if he is alright._

_Tron can only look at the damage and wonders for the first time if these worlds are worth enduring the damage._

_But what strikes him as he surveys the area, the light glittering off of the shards of the attackers like stardust, is that trying to destroy any evidence of the encroaching new worlds and seal themselves off isn’t protection._

_It’s suppression._

_If he’d learned anything from Flynn, it’s that curiosity isn’t a bad thing. His programing won’t allow him to leave this place, it won’t allow him to_ want _to leave this place, but it doesn’t mean he can’t imagine beyond the world he’s confined to. This system was designed to revolutionize and evolve._

_There’s a freedom to that that he doesn’t quite comprehend but he doesn’t want it taken away._

 

*.*.*.*

 

Quorra visits a world called Halloween Town.

What draws her to this place is the multicolored lights. Although it’s a dark, macabre city of stone, cobwebs, graveyards, pumpkins, and monsters there are thousands of strands of Christmas lights strung up everywhere. It’s so fascinating and contradictory that Quorra wanders around feeling extremely confused. She can see remnants of Heartless here imbedded in the cobblestone streets, but it resembles ghoulish Halloween decorations rather than something horrific, embellishments rather than scars.

It’s oddly beautiful.

Eventually she makes her way to the town square where a tall skeleton man is dancing about while a woman, who looks like she’s been stitched together, is sitting on the edge of the green water fountain sewing a Santa outfit.

They are Jack the Pumpkin King and his lady Sally.

Jack is so ecstatic at meeting “another new person” that he takes Quorra in his arms and begins to spin her around. Jack’s assured stride carrying them along as if this was a magnificent ballroom and any unease she might have felt at the unsettling surroundings melts away with his laughter and they dance until the moon is big and high in the sky.

“Do they have Christmas on your world?” Jack asks. “It’s my favorite holiday! Well...actually Halloween is my favorite. But Christmas is most assuredly my second favorite. Actually...I love them both equally.”

“We do.” Quorra says. She had celebrated with Sam last year and had given him homemade sugar cookies in the shape of hexagons, polygons, squares, circles, triangles and octagons that Laurie had helped her make.

“Wonderful! Any world with Christmas must be one worth knowing!” Jack declares.

“I agree.” Quorra says.

She hopes she can be back in time to celebrate it with her friends.

“Jack? Can I ask you something?”

“But of course!”

“Were you scarred when the Heartless invaded?”

Quorra had been scared. She can still hear the shrieking of the Heartless behind her if she thinks about it too long.

“Scarred? Not at all! I’m sorry they didn’t stay longer.” Jack says whimsically. “I had such grand plans for a parade they’d have been perfect for.”

Quorra thinks it’s rather nice that Jack had wanted to turn such a horrific event into something wonderful.

Even if it’s a little misguided.

The Pumpkin King gives her a Christmas present as she leaves, a beautiful box wrapped in red with a green bow.  But instead of opening she tucks it away, resolving to open it under the Christmas tree this year with Sam, and Alan and Laurie.

“Come back soon! Halloween is just around the corner!” Jack declares then claps Sally’s hand and the pair begin to dance. Quorra stays long enough to see them waltz up a curly hill and become framed in the moonlight before departing with a smile.

 

*.*.*.*

 

_Tron has an idea._

_(He doesn’t share it with CLU because he had already made his opinion on the matter - and Tron’s competence- very clear)_

_He looks at the darkness as if it were another version of a portal that Kevin Flynn uses. Someone made it to get inside of the system and left it open. And while Zuse claims that it’ll disappear on its own, he reasons that, like a User, whoever opened it, will return to go through it_ before _it closes._

_Something must be done and he feels responsible._

_So he returns to the Corridor of Darkness._

_He sits as close to it as he dares and waits._

 

*.*.*.*

 

Quorra finds Disney Castle.

It shines bright like the North Star. The path to it shimmers with stardust and auroras and when she arrives she finds that it’s a gorgeous, colorful, zany world, full of talking animals, objects, magic, and imagination. There is a faint trace of the Heartless here but the light seems to outshine its shadows.

She ends up in the Courtyard where all the bushes are cut into the shapes of various animals playing instruments and she swears that she can hear the faint traces of music in the air. There, at the base of a bush she would later learn is trimmed into the image of Clarabelle Cow, she meets the duchess, Daisy Duck (Who is actually a duck!).

Considering that Quorra just abruptly appears Daisy is remarkably level headed about the entire situation. She even invites Quorra to sit next to her and tells her all about the bushes that are meant as tributes to Steamboat Willy. They exchange stories. She reveals that she’s waiting for Donald to return and in the meantime is helping Queen Minnie with research. Quorra tells her about travels and how she’s looking for someone.

 “What happened to him?” Daisy asks, tilting her head.

“He...” Quorra tries to think of how to phrase it. “He’s lost. I think...I hope.”

It was the first time she voices that tiny doubt and she bites her lip because that admission feels like a betrayal.

She has traveled for a while now, had seen worlds with amazing things. But there is never so much as a hint of him and it’s starting to become so disheartening.

It feels like she’s failing Flynn, and Sam, and Alan and Tron.

“Oh.” Daisy thinks about it for a moment. 

“You should ask Sora.” She advises. “He has traveled the universe so if anyone would know of your friend, he most likely would.”

“Whose Sora?” Quorra blinks.

And so Daisy tells her all about a boy who was searching for his beloved friend. She tells her about Sora’s two companions, a wizard and knight, about a kingdom and its wandering king, about darkness, heartless, nobodies, a keybearer, kingdom hearts, and a universe that was just beginning to heal itself.

It’s horrifying and terrible.

It’s wonderful and beautiful.

And all Quorra can think about is how Sora searched the entire cosmos for his friend...

And found her.

She knows that it’s probably not proper etiquette but nonetheless she hugs Daisy.

 

*.*.*.*

 

_Tron remembers Kevin Flynn telling him about throwing rocks into the ocean with his son. About how, if Sam strayed too far from him, he’d put two fingers in his mouth and whistle and the sound would carry across the dunes, and he’d always find him because Sam would always hear him._

 

*.*.*.*

 

Quorra remembers Kevin Flynn telling her about playing video games with Sam. About how Tron was always Sam’s favorite game, and how he even had a small figurine of him that lit up. He’d always run around the house shouting “I fight for the Users!” and Flynn would laugh and he’d always wondered how the real Tron would have reacted if he’d heard that.

 

*.*.*.*

 

_Cycles pass._

 

*.*.*.*

 

Time passes.

 

*.*.*.*

 

_Tron waits._

 

*.*.*.*

 

Quorra travels.

 

*.*.*.*

 

_Tron thinks._

 

*.*.*.*

 

Quorra wishes.

 

*.*.*.*

 

_Tron has no idea why he is driven to do what he does next. Maybe he thinks that it might get someone’s attention. Maybe he just likes the idea that it could get carried through. (wouldn’t it be funny if Flynn or Sam heard?)_

_Whatever the reasons, Tron puts two fingers in his mouth and whistles at the corridor._

_It’s a shrill, loud note._

 

*.*.*.*

 

Quorra hears a sound. It carries through time and space, a long whistling note that catches her ear and pulls her attention from the cosmos before her. She stops to listen in amazement.

She can’t pinpoint its location, because it seems to float around the endless starry landscape.

Eventually the sound fades, as every note does in space, but now Quorra’s eye has caught another world that she hadn’t seen before. It’s spinning in a slow, lazy circle, and she can see a beautiful green nebula that forms a trail away from it into another dimension, a bright blue train chugging along it.

Maybe it came from there?

She heads to it and finds herself in Twilight Town.

 

*.*.*.*

 

_Tron lowers his fingers from his mouth and strains to listen. He_ thinks _he can hear the faint echo of his whistle as is dissipates into the void (but perhaps that’s just wishful thinking)._

_“Program! You shouldn’t be so close to the darkness.”_

_Tron is on his feet in an instant, light disc in his hand as he spins around._

_There, standing on a large rock, is a figure wearing a long black cloak with bits of silver that dangle from the neckline. The hood has been pushed back to reveal his features. He has sharp angles to his face, with a dark complexion and long white hair, shorter tuffs sticking out around his pointed ears._

_“Who are you?” Tron demands. The disc in his hand activates as if the question were a threat, whirring to life with a hum and white light._

_The man’s eyes drift to the disc for only a moment before returning to the program._

_“I mean you no harm” He says quietly._

_“Due to recent events, I highly doubt that.” Tron counters._

_The man sighs and steps down off of the rock. “You mean the Heartless of course.”_

_Tron_ thinks _that he’s speaking about the Magnum Loader, Straffer’s and Devastator but because they are forging entities and have no classification other than what CLU had dubbed them, he can’t be sure._

_“_ You _brought them here.” He accuses, phishing for information._

_“Yes. And for that I’m sorry.” For what it’s worth, the man appears to be genuine in that regard._

_“Who are you?” Tron raises his disc up, so that his intention is in no way unclear. He wants answers and though he believes that it is possible that this man is a User, he is also responsible for threatening the safety of the Grid._

_The man looks at Tron for a long moment. There is indecision in his eyes but finally he speaks._

_“Riku.”_

 

*.*.*.*

 

Twilight Town is the most like the User world out of all the one’s she has visited. But there are enough differences to make it feel completely foreign. Everything here seems like its more exaggerated somehow, like a cartoon. The cobblestone just a little bigger then necessary, the buildings all different shapes and sizes with more flamboyant details, the colors more vivid. But what’s most striking is that amongst this hodgepodge, it all seems to fit together and doesn’t clash.

Quorra indulges a bit by getting a local treat called Sea Salt ice-cream. It’s salty and sweet and she goes to the clock tower to look out at the city while she eats.

She wonders if this is where she’ll find Tron.

(She hopes so. It’s certainly a nice place.)

 

*.*.*.*

 

_“Why are you here?” Tron doesn’t stand down, but he does lower his light disc slightly. Riku moves to stand in front of the corridor, looking at Tron as though he were something particularly fascinating._

_“The Heartless are trying to invade your system.” Riku says. It doesn’t escape his notice he doesn’t answer his question. “A friend of mine, his name is DiZ, he wrote a program that will keep them out.” He reaches into his cloak but immediately slows when Tron tenses. He carefully extracts a dark black light disc. He activates it and with a flash of red the data it contains appears displays itself, scrolling codding and algorithms._

_Riku gently holds it out for Tron to take. After initially hesitating, the security program deactivates his disc to take the new one. Once it’s in his hand he can see that it’s a firewall program but has far too complex of a structure for him to grasp properly._

_He can also see that in order to have constructed it, Riku would have needed critical information about the Grid._

_“You broke into the memory core.” Tron’s voice is cold and hard._

_“Yes.”_

_“_ Why _?”_

_“Just install the firewall.” Riku says. “I’ll leave you be. You won’t have to worry about it ever again.”_

_He begins to walk forward but the black disc lands on the ground with a dull thud and Tron’s helmet slides over his head, glossy and black, reflecting Riku’s image in a warped mockery on its surface. He holds up his light disc, glowing brightly with white light._

_“You are not leaving.” Tron says._

_Although his expression remains stoic, Riku hesitates. “It doesn’t concern you.”_

_“I exist to protect the Grid and you have stolen critical information about its design.”_

_“Program-”_

_“My_ name _is Tron.” He says. “And I fight for the Users.”_

 

*.*.*.*

 

Quorra decides to take the train from Central Station to Sunset Terrace.

When she asks the Ticketmaster, he informs her that most people usually drifted to that side of town because it had a beach. She thinks back on the Grid, at the black churning waters, and wonders if it’s possible that Tron had drifted here, into crystal clear blue water that sparkled in the sunlight.

She likes that thought.

The sun appears as if it were beginning to set when she arrives, the sky a lovely golden purple color. Apparently it’s always like this here, hence the name. Sunset Terrace is a lovely little cove town that feels like a secret getaway from the bustling area of Market Street.

When she asks around she learns about a Ghost Train. Apparently it passed by at a five o’clock every day and is something of a local urban legend. She is directed to Sunset Hill (where the train can be seen) and heads up there to wait.

Quorra doesn’t know what she expects. It’s not as if Tron would be on that train.

But...she just feels like she was drawn to this place for a reason.

It wasn’t to explore, or to enjoy, but because she was _meant_ to be here. So she goes to the hill, filled with hope, and sits to wait.

 

*.*.*.*

 

_Souleater appears in Riku’s hand with a white flash._

_The long black blade is intimidating looking, gleaning in the light of Tron’s disc. Riku lifts it, aiming it directly at Tron._

_But he is unmoved by the sight._

_Either Tron is right or he is wrong, his program hopelessly compromised with faulty assumptions. The last option is terrifying but whichever it ends up being, he would face it head on because he could do nothing else. Tron existed to protect the users and this system. He’d made a promise to Flynn that it would be safe with him guarding it._

_He intended to keep it._

_Riku waits for a long moment uneasily._

 

*.*.*.*

 

She waits a long time. Overhead it slowly fades from sunset to evening and eventually stars begin to peek out from a darkened sky.

There is nothing.

The disappointment is so profound that it’s practically a physical pain and she leans back on the grass with a defeated sigh. The wind gently floats in from the sea, bringing with it the smell of salt water and ruffling her hair.

Quorra is lost and confused. She doesn’t know what to do now.

She was _so_ sure...

“Hey, are you okay?”

 

*.*.*.*

 

_To Tron’s surprise, Souleater is retracted. Riku steps back and folds his arms_

_“Do you have friends?” He finally asks._

_The question is so completely unrelated to the situation that Tron doesn’t know how to react. Riky waits patiently, tapping his fingers on his upper arms expectantly._

_“What...do you mean?” Tron carefully asks._

_“I know that you’re a computer program. But you have to have friends. Someone who you love and trust with your life?”_

_Tron considers that carefully._

_He loved and trusted Alan-1 with his life (he_ was _his creator.)_

_But he was a User, not a “friend”._

_“I don’t know.” He says honestly._

_Riku’s look is part pity, part imploring. “Your world is a computer program.” He says. “A living, adapting enviroment. How it was constructed will help to create a simulation that will heal a friend of mine so that he’ll be whole again. It was wrong, I know that. But I can’t be sorry about it. Because it’s for Sora.”_

_Tron frowns, pulling back his light disc._

_He thinks about his old system. It’s hard and there are so many things about it that he misses. Yori, Alan-1, how simple his role had been in Space Paranoids._

_But Tron can’t ever go back. He’d left it behind when he had agreed to go with Flynn. He’d given up everything..._

_And why had he done that?_

_Because Flynn had asked him. Kevin Flynn, who wasn’t_ his _User, but whom he trusted just as much, had_ wanted _him to come._

_In a sense Tron had traveled worlds for Flynn._

_Perhaps it wasn’t so incomprehensible to think there was someone else who’d do the same for another._

 

*.*.*.*

 

The person who asks her that is a gawky teenage boy with spikey brown hair standing a few feet away. His big blue eyes look worried as he takes in Quorra’s sad face.

“I don’t know.” She says honestly.

He sits down next to her. “What’s wrong?”

“I thought...I guess it was a bit silly.” She sighs. “I heard about a Ghost Train and thought that maybe it traveled worlds. I hoped...” She trails off.

She doesn’t want to say it out loud.

But the boy is looking at her so kindly that Quorra feels compelled to answer, if only because it was nice that he cared enough to ask.

“I thought maybe someone I’m looking for might have been on it. But I was wrong. There is no train.” Quorra reaches down and picks at the grass, feeling foolish.

“Well, who are you looking for? Maybe we can help.” He offers.

“I doubt it. Nobody else has been able to.” Quorra sighs. “You know, I’ve been searching a long time and through a lot of worlds. So far I haven’t found a thing.”

“Really? Wow. It must be important.”

“It is.” She assures him. “I made a promise.”

She thinks back to that moment in the Light Jet. It had seemed so easy at the time.

_“When you get out, can you look for Tron? I know that, to you, he’s Rinzler...but to me he’s Tron. He’s my friend. It’s important.”_

It was then that Quorra had considered all of the things that CLU’S enforcer had done to the Grid. How he helped to carry out all of CLU’s vicious commands and brutalized the system into compliance.

But she also considered Tron. This strange legend she had never met that had always seemed more like an idea then an actual program. Of the stories Flynn had told, that a city had been named after him. How his entire existence had been to fight for the Users, that he had been good and just, and she consider how every bit of that precious data that had been corrupted into something horrible against his will. And even though there was seemingly nothing left of him, Flynn could still see the potential of his old friend there.

Quorra had found herself nodding.

_“I promise.”_

“Well” The boy says. “ _Who_ are you looking for?”

She supposes that she’s come this far. She minus well see it through.

“Tron.”

At first the boy blinks rapidly and leans back in surprise. Quorra doesn’t quite understand his reaction but then a big, happy smile slowly blooms across his face.

“What’s your name?”

“Quorra.”

The boy stands up and brushes the grass particles off his pants. Then he holds out his hand to her, happiness radiating off of him like sunlight, warm and bright. “Well Quorra, I think I know where you need to go.”

His energy is infectious, as is his smile. She reaches out and clasps onto his hand.

 

*.*.*.*

 

_Tron knows that he shouldn’t do this._

_But he does it anyway._

_He thinks about how Flynn had wanted to use the Grid to revolutionize the world, about his grand ideas for the freedom of information and technology._

_Tron hopes that he’s following those ideals and not betraying them and he watches Riku enter Corridor of Darkness, information about the Grid’s structure stored in his pocket. The darkness swells, but before it can swallow Riku up, he turns around and nods toward the program._

_“Thank you Tron.” He says sincerely._

_There is a bright flash from behind Tron and he glances over his shoulder to see the portal that Kevin Flynn uses flickers into existence like the birth of a star and burn brightly in the sky._

_When he turns around to speak to Riku, he finds that the Corridor has faded out of existence, leaving behind unblemished code, as if it had never been._

_He feels a pang of regret._

_He wishes he’d gotten the chance to ask Riku about the places he’d been._

 

*.*.*.*

 

The boy’s name is Sora and she can’t help but laugh with utter delight at the revelation.

He takes Quorra to Radiant Garden with his two friends, Goofy and Donald. He says that a man named Ansem had a program called Tron. With every word her heart had begun to swell, tears forming in her eyes as he explains that Tron lived in Space Paranoids (the Garden’s system) and protected Radiant Garden.

When they arrive in Merlin’s house through a transporter, Leon Squal, Yuffie Kusanagi, and Cid Highwind is waiting with his arms folded over his chest. Yuffie squeals and rushes over to hug Sora and Donald and Goofy.

“I dunno about this.” Cid says dubiously and eyes Quorra as if she were particularly suspicious. But she is not offended because she is too busy gawking at all of the books crammed into the small house and the gigantic computer terminal that sticks out garishly amongst the cozy atmosphere and brick walls near the transporter.

“Weren’t you the one who said that it was impossible for Ansem to have written the Tron program?” Leon asks with a raised eyebrow.

“I said it was _unlikely_ given that his codding is so different from design of the overall system. Not _impossible._ ” Cid huffed. “I certainly think it’s impossible for o _ther programs_ to manifest themselves physically to go _looking_ for him.” He sniffs at Quorra disdainfully. “No offense babe.”

“She’s not a program. She’s an ISO.” Sora corrects.

“Oh excuse me, that makes so much more sense.” Cid rolls his eyes.

“Shut up!” Yuffie says to them. She takes Quorra’s hand in hers and smiles sweetly at her. “Come on.”

She follows Yuffie as Sora, Leon, and Cid continue to bicker.

Quorra is taken from Merlin’s house to Hollow Bastion, a gigantic castle that’s being refurbished. Yuffie explains that this was once Ansem’s home, where he housed a gigantic computer. It’s through a hidden passage in his study that they are brought to the computer.

It’s here that Quorra feels as if she can’t breathe. Examining the system, she realizes it’s a duplicate of the one from ENCOM. Their voices fade as she approaches the console, and she feels her heart, swollen with hope, beginning to pound so hard that she swore her ribs had to be vibrating from the force of it.

This was it...she didn’t know if she could take it if this wasn’t true.

It had to be.

It _had_ to.

“This is a dumb idea.” Cid warns but gestures for Sora, Donald, Goofy, and Quorra to stand in the middle of the chamber then began to type on the computer.

Everything around them begins to hum.

“Heads up!” He says.

“This’ll feel a little weird.” Sora tries to warn but doesn’t get the chance to finish. Because a beam strikes all three of them and they are broken into digital components and scanned into the system.

 

*.*.*.*

 

_Tron arrives on a lightcycle just as Flynn is walking down the bridge from the portal. CLU is already waiting for him and gives Tron an irritated glance._

_“Where have you been?” He asks. Then he notices the additional disk on Tron’s back. “What’s that?”_

_“The answer to our problems.” He hands it over to CLU. “Install it.”_

_CLU activates the disc and examines the data and his eyes widen. “Where did you-“_

_“Greetings programs!” Flynn interrupts with a big smile, his arms out stretched. “How’s it goin’?”_

_CLU can’t answer and Tron remains silent._

 

*.*.*.*

 

It’s not as smooth a transport as Flynn’s to the Grid. They are rerouted through a series of old processors and reformatted into data. It can’t compute what Quorra is but it doesn’t matter because she transforms herself appropriately so the system will allow her in.

And soon they are uploaded into Space Paranoids.

They appear in the I/O tower. As the light fades, leaving the natural glow of the system to illuminate things, Quorra sees a program standing at the base of the platform. His clothing is white and he has a boxy helmet protecting his head with no visor.

His circuitry is glowing blue.

_Tron._

She recognizes him immediately.

It feels like a star has collapsed in her chest and force of it burns bright and she thinks that she might burst apart from the sheer joy of it.

Before Sora and his friends can do anything, she runs and collides with the program in a tight hug, afraid that if she lets go he’ll disappear.

He stumbles back a bit and wraps his arms around her instinctively and awkwardly.

“Um...okay.”

He sounds so much like Alan-1...

Quorra cries a little, but she thinks that that’s okay.

Because she’s happy and it’s wonderful.

She’s found him.

And he’s okay.

 

*.*.*.*

 

_He takes Flynn on his lightcycle, away from CLU, so that he can explain what has been happening._

_Tron is not sure how he will react, if what he did was the right thing but Flynn needs to know._

_He is about to tell him about letting Riku leaving with the schematics when CLU appears at the far end of the street to interrupt their conversation._

_“Am I still to create the perfect system?” He asks Flynn._

_“Yeah?”_

_CLU smiles and steps back._

_His helmet encloses over his head._

 

*.*.*.*

 

Radient Garden Tron is an older version but she recognizes him as the same program. From what she can see he has been completely overhauled. His codding has been taken apart and reconstructed with such meticulous care that whoever had done it had invested a great deal of time and energy and skill into the process. She sees that all of the corrupted data CLU had installed has been extracted and he has been rebooted him back to his original programing, with pieces of new data written in so that the vital missing pieces from the Rinzler program were filled. That data resembles a firewall so that nobody can make alterations to him without proper authorization.

Tron has no memory of how he ended up here. For him, Radiant Garden has been his entire existence.

But Quorra knows that it won’t be his entire existence.

Space Paranoids, as elaborate a system as it is, and as vital as it is to the Garden, is ultimately just a copy of the original on Earth. Ansem had constructed it from ENCOM’s old data and adjusted it to his whims. Quorra sees that nothing about Tron was copied. It is he that is wholly original, an errant damaged program he somehow had acquired and repaired and ported here to use. She briefly wonders why Ansem would have done that, but mostly she’s just relieved and thankful that he did.

 Tron sat on the platform of the I/O tower, watching her warily. Although he’d politely listened to her (mostly because Sora had asked that he do so before he’d left them alone), she could tell that he didn’t believe her, nor did he like anything she’d said.

She sits next to him and considers her options.

Quorra knew she was asking a lot. She wants Tron to leave his home, leave behind everything he’d even known (as he knew it anyway), so that he could follow her into something unknown. Programs usually did not think outside of the parameters of their programing so what she was asking probably was not even something he could comprehend.

She wonders how Kevin Flynn had ultimately convinced him to leave Space Paranoids for the Grid.

 

*.*.*.*

 

_Rinzler is the perfect program._

_He has no purpose for growth or independence beyond CLU’s orders. CLU’s vision of the system is Rinzler’s vision._

_But sometimes...he thinks about his old purpose._

_It’s difficult because the new objectives and parameters that had been reprogramed into him, overwrote nearly all of his original data but faint traces of memory of the Tron program linger underneath it all, like a whisper that won’t ever fade._

_He misses his original purpose, given to him by his User, Alan-1._

_(“I fight for the Users...”)_

_He misses Kevin Flynn._

_And he misses...that strange feeling...of knowing that there was something beyond the digital world..._

_But Rinzler can’t ever go back to being Tron. His new codding wouldn’t permit it._

_So he only thinks about it sometimes._

 

*.*.*.*

 

“Do you want to know what it’s like?” She finally says.

“What do you mean?” Tron asks slowly.

“Outside of this.” She gestures around at Space Paranoids. “I’ve searched all throughout the universe for you. Seen so many worlds...met all kinds of Users.” She sighs. “The digital world should be your home, not a prison. You don’t have to be confined to it and your existence isn’t limited to it. Wouldn’t you like to go out and explore something unknown?”

Tron hesitates and Quorra notices.

“What?”

 

*.*.*.*

 

Tron can feel depths of his code twist and the parameters of his being flickering. It’s a blinking sputter that makes it difficult to think as his mind strains to push beyond the boundaries of his programing, to identify the strange thrum that goes through him at the hypothetical idea.

He doesn’t know if it is confusion, excitement or fear. To be unconnected from the digital world, to exist independent of programed commands...Tron cannot begin to truly understand the magnitude of that.

It’s terrifying...

(It’s wonderful...)

He can feel faint traces of memory, too fractured to truly grasp. He’d been asked before if he’d ever like to explore but hadn’t been able to genuinely appreciate the question at the time...

(Had that actually happened?)

“I don’t know.”

Quorra smiles brightly.

 

*.*.*.*

 

_When CLU begins to plan on leaving the Grid to spread his control into the User realm, Rinzler thinks about what Flynn had asked him, so long ago on that mirrored tower._

_Tron was beginning to think that he might have said yes eventually._

_But ultimately his proprieties are CLU’s order so these thoughts are never in his mind for very long._

 

*.*.*.*

 

Cid Highwind throws a loud fit about the loss of the Tron program as he considers it a vital part of the Garden’s system. It takes Quorra a few minutes to realize that he doesn’t really believe that, he is just genuinely upset that Tron is leaving and he expresses it by shouting and obscenities.

Sora, Donald, and Goofy each take the time to hug Tron. Yuffie cries, and Leon shakes his hand.

Quorra loves that so many Users consider him their friend. Perhaps he wasn’t as lost as she always thought or feared.

She promises them all that they’ll return one day.

Before they leave, Tron makes a copy of his program and leaves it in Space Paranoids. When their gone, Tron 2.0 displays on all of the screens in Radiant Garden a message left behind by the original program.

**TO ALL MY FRIENDS, THANK YOU!**

**GOODBYE!**

 

*.*.*.*

 

Quorra is eager to get home, to see Sam, and Alan, and Laurie. But she also wants to show off everything to Tron.

So, as they travel Quorra decides that a few little detours are in order. She is attracted to a series of strange sporadic patterns stitched into the universe like an imperfect thread of fine silk. Taking Tron’s hand, she pulls him along. It's a gumi-stream and inside they find a realm where time and reality have ceased to function in the proper mathematical structure that constructs all logical existence. Instead it’s malleable, bending and stretching, folding and churning in a kaleidoscope of beautiful colors and dimensions and it’s like liquid candy and there are ships quickly passing around them to millions of worlds. Tron can only stare in wonder and she laughs with delight.

 

*.*.*.*

 

Tron doesn’t tell Quorra that he has one incident, undamaged and restored fully, stored in his memory bank. Ansem had left there for him, because it was important. But there is no context for it and he has no idea where it took place. All he knows is the name.

Kevin Flynn.

_Kevin Flynn is laughing. “Now that I know that there are other worlds out there man...I want to see them all!  And I want you to come along. I want you to_ want _to come along Tron! You can be just like me!” He says. He pokes Tron in the chest with his fingertips. “Flesh and blood. Wouldn’t that be a kick?”_

_“I don’t...think that’s a good idea.” Tron is uncomfortable. He realizes that he may actually_ want to _, just as Flynn suggests but he cannot truly comprehend the consequences of it, nor does he think it’s appropriate._

_“What? Why not?”_

_“I don’t think that programs should be able to...become a User, as you say.” Tron says._

_“Why not?”_

_“Because we exist to serve the Users. What purpose do we serve if we’re equal to you?”_

_Kevin leans back and regarded Tron for a long moment._

_“You’re already equal to me Tron.” He says. “You’re my friend.”_

Tron treasures the memory.

 

*.*.*.*

 

Quorra takes Tron to Halloween Town. She wants Tron (who, according to Sora, expressed an interest in the same topic) to meet Jack.

The Pumpkin King is delighted to have a pupil who appreciates the joys of dancing. Quorra cannot stop laughing as he hauls a startled Tron around the square in a tango.

Jack gives Tron a Christmas present this time, and makes him promise to practice and visit.

 

*.*.*.*

 

“Quorra?” Tron asks.

They are sitting on the edge of the Olympus Coliseum, watching Hercules train heroes in the afternoon sun. She can see the swirling vortex of the Underworld just on the horizon, but the construction on the Coliseum is slowly, but surely, being built up so high and magnificent that it’s bricking over it.

“Yes?”

“Thank you.”

Quorra loops her arm through his and leans against Tron contently. “You’re welcome.”

 

*.*.*.*

 

Sam Flynn waits for over a year.

There is not a day that doesn’t pass that he doesn’t think of Quorra, alternating from worry to loneliness with every thought.

He’s in the middle of a board meeting, Alan and Ed going over ENCOM’S figures, when a beep draws his attention. It’s his cell phone indicating that he has a text message.

**TOLD YOU I’D BE BACK! :) AT FLYNN’S!**

Any focus on the company is obliterated immediately. He abandons the meeting, not even bothering to explain, just rushes out of the building as fast as he can as Ed demands to know what’s going on.

He can’t breathe. Desperation, excitement, and hope are welling up in his chest, making it hard to see, but he knows the route by heart, could navigate it blind.

On his bike the streets bleed past in a blur. Then he’s there, at his father’s arcade.

The sign has been turned on, like a lighthouse on a stormy night. Standing outside the dilapidated building are two people. The bike is barely at a stop when Sam leaps off it and is tackled by Quorra in a gigantic hug that takes his breath away.

“Made it!” She laughs and Sam is laughing too as he hugs her back. For the first time in a year he feels like he can breathe and it’s wonderful. She doesn’t look or feel any different. It’s like no time has passed at all.

“I want you to meet someone.” She whispers in his ear, and then pulls back.

It’s then that he notices a man is standing in the doorway of the arcade, hiding in the shadows. Quorra gestures for him to come forward and he does so, slowly and cautiously. He is wearing black boots and pants, a black leather motorcycle jacket over a cobalt shirt.

At first Sam is confused, and feels slightly dizzy for it. He knows that face. From many years ago, before time had turned his hair gray, added wrinkles here and there...

It’s Alan. But it’s not.

It’s _Tron._

“Um...hello.” Tron says. Suddenly, Sam feels like he’s eleven years old again and he’s meeting his hero for the first time. He doesn’t know what to say. He doesn’t know how to even begin processing this.

He looks over at Quorra.

“You did it.” He whispers and she nods, looking so proud of herself that she’s practically bouncing. She takes Sam’s hand and pulls him over to so that their all standing in front of one another.

“Sam, this is Tron.” She says.

“It’s nice to meet you Sam Flynn.” Tron says honestly.

Sam starts to laugh and finds he can’t stop, nor can he stop smiling.

He wants to show Tron the User world. He wants to introduce him to Alan, so that he can finally meet his User and Alan can see everything he did for the past twenty years had been worth it for that moment.

He wants to know where they’ve been and how Quorra found him.

He wants to know everything.

But there would be time for that later. Instead Sam holds out his hand, feeling oddly shy.

“It’s nice to finally meet you too Tron.”

Tron takes Sam’s hand and slowly grins.

“Welcome home.”

END OF LINE


End file.
